The Crimson Crusader has been on the prowl again, seeking
answers to the questions of Free Lance readers. Got a question and
can’t find the answer? Give the Red Phone a try
– always listening, always online, always at 635-9219.
The Crimson Crusader has been on the prowl again, seeking answers to the questions of Free Lance readers. Got a question and can’t find the answer? Give the Red Phone a try – always listening, always online, always at 635-9219.
Power Outage Problems
“The power went out in my house last Friday for about a half-hour and I didn’t see anything in the newspaper and was wondering what happened. I called PG&E to try and find out but all I could get was a recording.”
Red Phone called up Pacific Gas & Electric about the power outage and, lo and behold, got the same recording run-around. It seems PG&E installed a new computer controlled phone answering system to dispatch callers. After answering several questions, several times from said computer, Red Phone was finally connected to a live person named Steve who wasted no time telling Red Phone he couldn’t help.
Jeff Smith, a PG&E spokesperson, could, however – sort of. Smith said there was a power outage Friday afternoon last week that knocked out power to about 57,000 customers throughout San Benito and Monterey counties. Power was restored in about 30 minutes, but PG&E couldn’t pinpoint the cause. The power outage, however, was not the one our caller experienced. That power outage lasted about 30 minutes, but began a little after 8am, according to the caller. Smith said he didn’t know what caused that outage, but that PG&E does have a number of unexplainable outages each year. In those cases, the power goes out suddenly and PG&E technicians cannot find out the cause, but are at least able to restore it.
“If someone loses their power, they should call us because our customers are usually how we find out about power outages first,” Smith said.
PG&E 24-hour customer service can be reached at 1-800-PGE-5000.
Access to Offenders
“Now that we have access to sex offenders on the Internet by Megan’s Law, how do we find out what the numbers mean for the offenses? How can we get more information on this?”
For those that don’t know, information on sex offenders is available at www.meganslaw.ca.gov by city, county, name, address and zip code. The database contains the last known address for sex offenders required to register with the state. The numbers the caller is referring lists the section of California Penal Code that addresses the specific offense committed. The California Penal Code is also available online at www.leginfo.ca.gov/calaw.html. Users can search for the offenses by simply typing the number found by the individual offenders names and searching in the penal code.
More information on individual offenses or people listed on the site can be found by the calling the Hollister Police Department or the San Benito County Sheriff’s Office.
“That’s the logical place for people to turn if they need more information because those are the agencies that collect and report the registration information to us,” said Mariam Bedrosian with Attorney General’s office.
